CES: The Future Is Now-ish

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) storms Las Vegas this week. THE FUTURIST magazine and other members of the media received a special preview access to the more than 20,000 new products expected to launch at the event this year.

Previous CES shows saw the launch of the VCR and DVD players. According to Shawn Dubravac of the Consumer Electronics Association, more than 90% of U.S. households own a product that debuted at the world’s biggest tech show. Dubravac called 2012 the year of the interface and stressed that some of the inventions and prototypes on display won’t be commercially viable “for years.” Read more of THE FUTURIST magazine’s on-site coverage at wfs.org.

MIT Scientists Discover Memory Gene

Our memories give birth to our expectations of the future; but what gives birth to memory? A group of MIT scientists led by Yingxi Lin claim to have discovered a master gene for memory encoding. The Npas4 gene is responsible for activating the genes that make memories stronger and more permanent (both synapse strength and connections between neurons). “This is a gene that can connect from experience to the eventual changing of the circuit,” says Lin.

The team found that Npas4 is heavily present in the CA3 region of the hippocampus in mice when they wandered to a part of a maze where they received a mild electric shock. The gene helped them remember to avoid that area. When the researchers removed the gene from that area of the hippocampus, the mice forgot which part of the maze was dangerous.

The ability to produce Npas4 in sufficient volume may have an effect on the study of learning and education in the future.

January 2012 Prediction List Roundup

The beginning of 2012 saw the usual burst of predictions from media, industry, tech watchers, and futurists.

Declan McCullagh of the popular blog CNET forecast that “If 2011 was the Year of the hackers, 2012 may be the Year the Hackers Upset the Political Establishment.” Read more.

Daryl Lang of the Web site Breaking Copy published a self-deprecatingly titled list of “Ten Foolishly Specific Predictions for 2012,” among them: “An angry online mob forces the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to resign.” Read more.

John Brandon of Inc. magazine predicted that, by 2025, augmented reality and instantaneous language translation will be common.“ Read more.

Lance Ulanoff of Mashable announced “6 Crazy Tech Predictions for 2012,” among them: “Scientists will partner with Hollywood studios to unveil a new technology known as ‘Fresh Ends.’ Using CGI, Hollywood script writers, voice and context recognition and logic algorithms, Fresh Ends technology will generate new endings for some of the world’s most popular films. These slightly rewritten movies will be re-released to theaters—just like the 3D rereleases—and are expected to add 15- to 20% additional box office returns to each film. For now, Fresh Ends only works with movies shot digitally.“ Read more.

IBM published five predictions based on current IBM projects; they included telepathetic control of computers, the end of the digital divide, multifactor biometrics, and predictive analytics ending the days of junk mail. Read more.

Finally, social networking guru Brian Solis joined with Awareness Networks and other futurists in the release of the 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Report, packed with predictions about the future of social networks. The bottom line: “Engage or Die.” Read more (PDF).

Disease Hunters Follow the Night Lights

Public-health officials may have a new tool for fighting epidemics in developing countries, thanks to satellite images of nighttime light patterns in cities.

Researchers led by Nita Bharti of Princeton University have correlated the onset of communicable diseases such as measles with the population growth that occurs seasonally as people move from rural areas into cities. Comparing NASA night-light data with health records from Niger between 2000 and 2004, the researchers found that measles cases were more prevalent in cities’ brightest spots.

Monitoring changes in nighttime lighting will help identify hotspots for epidemics and enable public-health workers to inoculate the most vulnerable populations, the researchers believe. The night-light pattern tracking could also be used to monitor population movements during wars and natural disasters.

Better Nanotubes for Better Electronics

A range of electronic products and solar cell technologies could become more affordable, thanks to a new manufacturing technique that expedites the production of carbon nanotubes.

These molecule-sized tube structures, which are now added to many structural materials, come in two varieties: semiconducting nanotubes, the active material in transistors and solar cells, and conducting nanotubes, used in batteries.

The current carbon nanotube manufacturing process creates conducting and semiconducting nanotubes in the same batch. They have to be separated, and this has presented a longtime “production bottleneck,” according to Stanford University chemical-engineering associate professor Zhenan Bao.

Bao has co-developed, with colleagues at the University of California–Davis and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the use of a polymer that latches onto semiconducting nanotubes but not the conducting ones.

The final polymer-fused semiconducting nanotubes are themselves useful for making lower-cost solar cells; “bendable display screens,” now increasingly featured in portable electronic devices; “stretchable electronics,” which feature in some components for advanced robots; and “circuits printed on plastics,” applications of which include transistors for flexible/foldable displays, transistors for flexible sensors and electronic skin, and circuits for printed price tags or RFIDs.

Do you have an invention or start-up that will change the world? The World Future Society has issued a call for inventions and innovations from breakthrough start-ups, who will compete in the second annual Futurists:BetaLaunch expo in Toronto next July.

Futurists:BetaLaunch (F:BL) serves as a technology expo where engineers, designers, and others can present their inventions to the 1,000 futurists expected to gather for the Society’s annual conference. Also in attendance will be venture capitalists such as Moon Express founder Naveen Jain, Netopia founder Reese Jones, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

What’s in THE FUTURIST magazine? (Members Only)

A selection of articles, special reports, and other future-focused material on our Web site that you might have missed. Members may sign in to read and comment. Not a member? Join now at http://www.wfs.org/renew.

Genetic engineering is actually as natural as any process on Earth, and mastering it would enable us to do what microbes do trillions of times every day, but purposefully and with better results. Read more.

Environmental threats and energy source opportunities; in vivo organ and tissue printing and buildings that self-adapt to weather fluctuations. These forecasts and more appear in THE FUTURIST’s annual roundup of thought-provoking ideas. Read more.

March 3, 2015 - The 21st century is creating a whole new area of expertise and a business opportunity for organizations both private and public focused on mitigating and combating climate change. Here is a brief overview of a few of these. If you know of others please let me know and I will endeavour to write about the work they are doing in this most important field.

February 27, 2015 - A few days away in Jamaica this week and I am feeling the vibe of that island even while sitting down to write about a journey far longer than a hop across the Caribbean from Florida to Montego Bay.

Science fiction is a genre of literature in which artifacts and techniques humans devise as exemplary expressions of our intelligence result in problems that perplex our intelligence or even bring it into existential crisis.

February 21, 2015 - By 2050 with more than 9 billion human mouths to feed let alone countless cattle, pigs, chickens and other meat, it is not surprising that food scientists are turning to the most prolific animals on Earth as a good source for protein. We are not talking about two and four-legged creatures, but those with six - insects.

February 19, 2015 - Some of you who are my readers may not know that when I graduated from university my degree was in Islamic Studies and Medieval History. I was very much aware of Islam's contribution to the science of mathematics, astronomy and chemistry during the golden age of the Islamic World, the 8th through the 10th century.